Raven Familiar

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Raven Familiar

Creature — Bird

Flying

Echo {2}{U} (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.)

When Raven Familiar enters the battlefield, look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

SaberTech on Ancestral Animar

3 years ago

I've seen talk on Discord that, in the face of cards like Notion Thief and Narset, Parter of Veils being more prominent these days, people have been cutting back on cantrip creatures in the deck. I'm not sure how I feel about that, since cantrip creatures contribute a lot to the storm-like aspect of the deck. People seem to drop Sea Gate Oracle and Raven Familiar pretty frequently, but those actually get around Narset and Thief. Wall of Blossoms is also a card that a lot of people feel ok cutting, so swapping that out for Loyal Drake is an option.

People seem to have mixed opinions on Siren Stormtamer. That could possibly be replaced with Fierce Guardianship. You run back into the discussion regarding the value of 1 cmc creatures in Animar with that one though.

There's the question of if you need a second recursion card in the form of Den Protector if you could just replace it with a free counterspell like Fierce Guardianship to help protect your stuff to begin with. Although, being able to flip it at instant speed to get Fierce Guardianship back for a second cast is pretty nice.

Phyrexian Revoker is a meta flex slot, but being able to use it to proactively shut down Hermit Druid or Nomads en-Kor in Hulk decks is useful for buying time, and hulk decks are pretty prevalent.

Animar's list has gotten pretty tight by this point. Cuts are hard.

multimedia on the flock

5 years ago

Hey, interesting concept for a tribal deck. Consider expanding on the strategy of Soulcatchers' Aerie? What makes this card shine with Birds and Derevi are sac outlets. With sac outlets you can sac Derevi to put a counter on Arie and then using Derevi's activated ability to put her back into play without playing Commander tax. This is one reason sac outlets are pretty busted with Derevi. Sac outlets to consider adding:

Skullclamp is great with sac outlets and is also good with all the 1/1 Owls/Familiars/Tokens.

Consider Reveillark + Guide combo? It's excellent with sac outlets as a reanimation engine. There's many Birds here who when in the graveyard have 2 or less power who Reveillark can reanimate. This combo by reanimating and sacing Birds can put a lot of counters on Aerie or draw a lot of cards with Skullclamp. Sacing and reanimating Reveillark and Guide can put a lot of counters on Soulcatcher since both have flying.

Mimeomancer + Kangee, Aerie Keeper is a good Bird interaction. Kangee cares about feather counters; Mimeomancer can at your upkeep put a feather counter on Kangee. Quest is good with Crookclaw Elder and Keeper of the Nine Gales. Tap two Birds to draw a card or bounce a permanent; when have four counters on Quest untap all your Birds during your opponents turns.

Witness can recur any card and be reanimated with Reveillark; it's a powerful card with Reveillark. Consider Yisan? Because of the low budget you can't play a lot of expensive price creature tutors. Yisan is a budget repeatable creature tutor that puts the creature right onto the battlefield. Birds have a nice curve of CMC creatures (1 drop all the way up to six drop).

As far as the five nonBird creatures you're allowed to play I suggest: Emeria Angel, Reveillark, Karmic Guide, Eternal Witness and Yisan.


Other Birds to consider adding:

Budget lands to consider:


Cards to consider cutting:

  • Coat of Arms
  • Illusionist's Bracers
  • Crystal Ball
  • Fable of Wolf and Owl
  • Gravitational Shift
  • Favorable Winds
  • Sphinx's Revelation
  • Explosive Vegetation
  • Wing Shards
  • Cloudfin Raptor
  • Skymark Roc
  • Oketra's Attendant
  • Aerie Mystics
  • Aven Wind Guide
  • Windbrisk Raptor
  • Arctic Aven
  • Sunpetal Grove
  • Glacial Fortress
  • Temple of Enlightenment
  • Temple of Plenty

Good luck with your deck.


AlarmedNine on Ancestral Animar

6 years ago

What are your thoughts on the new Brainstorm Merfolk from RIX?

I think it is worth testing in either Raven Familiar orSea Gate Oracle

greyninja on

6 years ago

Looks deadly. +1 from me

I can't believe the low land count; but animar does win with four or less land. I started along the Wild Cantor/Tinder Wall/Fyndhorn Elves weenie route and kept getting boardwiped after puking my hand onto the 'field. I needed a more midrange aggro to survive

Nowadays I see a bunch of countermagic. I like that you have a lot of those low-impact creatures that don't seem counter worthy but do add up. If you can get animar out and start the +1/+1 train you can win in one turn. Tolaria West I just added to find Cavern of Souls (or even Walking Ballista). Plus I'm considering running more counterspells myself

Do you feel like you've had success with Raven Familiar+Sea Gate Oracle? I like the idea of casting them as a one mana cantrip

Do you really have Timetwister and Imperial Recruiter on paper? If so I'm jelly. Land Grant I've never seen. Could be solid in Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder

I would consider including Dream Stalker and Man-o'-War. They either bounce themselves for extra animar +1/+1s or bounce other value creatures for more value. Food for thought.

Keep up the good work!

upgraded on derevi bird tribal

6 years ago

I had Aven Mimeomancer in the initial list because I thought it worked like a Song of the Dryads effect and made dudes into VANILLA birds, then when I figured out how the card actually worked I cut it without really considering whether the card ACTUALLY works with my deck. I should probably give it a shot.

I'm trying to keep my curve super-low, so once my cantripping enchantments come out I can machine-gun out birds, but Raven Familiar probably deserves a place even though three is a bit more than I want to spend on a non-game-winning bird.

Great suggestions, both! Thank you.

ClockworkSwordfish on derevi bird tribal

6 years ago

I'd consider Raven Familiar - yeah, it's a little costly with Echo considered, but its deck manipulation is very nice. Much better than, say, Owl Familiar's. Besides, with Seaside Haven and Soulcatchers' Aerie in there, sometimes you won't mind him dying right away.

Aven Mimeomancer might also be a nice addition. He can buff all of your little 1/1 birdies, bring an opponent's hulking dragon down to size, and even combos delightfully with Kangee.

filkinsmark on Animar 2.0

6 years ago

Cards I think you could do better; Wood Elves, Sage of Fables, Raven Familiar...Where are all the cards you sent me? Even if this isn't a Cockatrice list, Vizier of the Menagerie needs to be in there

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